Russian group NoName057 behind cyber attacks on various sites this morning

There were cyber attacks on various Icelandic websites this morning just after 9 AM. Shortly after the attacks Guðmundur Arnar Sigmundsson, director of the cyber security unit CERT-IS, told mbl.is that work was under way to get confirmation of what is going on.

“These are attacks aimed at different parties in Iceland,” he says, adding that it is uncertain whether these are so-called “stress attacks” (DDOS). A lot of traffic is then directed to a web in order to paralyse the systems and make them ineffective in the short term, without the hackers getting their hands on data or damaging systems.

The website of the Government Office, the Court of Justice, the Communications Office and the Environment Agency were also difficult to access due to the attack and the CERT-IS site was down.

"We are on it"

Gunnar Hörður Garðarsson, information officer for the Icelandic Police Commissioner, tells mbl.is that cyber attacks were foreseen on Icelandic websites around the time of the European Council summit, which begins in Harpa today.

“We are on it,” says Garðarsson, after the attack this morning.

Several websites are back up and another is underway, including the website of the Icelandic parliament.

Garðarsson says that they are so-called stress attacks (DDOS), “which we foresaw would be a part of.” A lot of traffic is then directed to a web in order to paralyse the systems and disable them in the short term, without the intruders getting through the data or damaging the system.

He mentions that CERT-IS's cyber security forces are working on the matter with the state police.

Are you aware of the motives behind these attacks?

“I understand that there are some definite indications, but nothing has been confirmed yet.”

Update:

NoName057 claims responsibility for the cyber attacks

A notice on the CERT-IS website indicates that the threat group NoName057 has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The group is Russian and was first identified in March 2022.

"Distributed attacks (DDoS attacks) were directed against individual websites and hosts, which temporarily suspended many websites. Respondents have worked to install websites and have reinforced their protections."

It also says that intrusion attempts in the system have been made following a series of scattered attacks. No further attacks are ruled out in the Icelandic internet district, and CERT-IS urges operational and security managers to be vigilant and report anything suspicious to cert@cert.is.

All is going according to plan

Asked how the preparations have been going for the summit in the last few days, Garðarsson says everything has been going well, apart from the cyber attacks, which were like he said earlier, anticipated.

“It’s been going just very well. The road closures downtown are in place. The delegations have started to arrive into the country.”